


Red and Black

by Eledhwen



Series: Whose secret is it anyway? [4]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, Post S02 for The Punisher, Post S03 for Daredevil, Two Angry Men have a conversation, but Frank knew anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 18:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17647280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eledhwen/pseuds/Eledhwen
Summary: The crazy-as-shit red suit is gone, and so are the horns, but there’s no mistaking the lean, muscled figure of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.Frank's not stupid, and he's pretty sure he knows who's behind the mask.





	Red and Black

**Author's Note:**

> Not really quite an identity reveal in the same vein as the others in this little series, but I think it fits. Set soon after S02 for The Punisher and some nebulous time after S03 for Daredevil.

Amy is gone. Russo is dead. Madani is pretty fucked up. It’s been a hell of a few weeks, Frank thinks, as he surveys the room he’s rented in the Bronx. It’s small, but clean and dry and has its own bathroom. He’s lived in worse and after recent days, it’s good to be somewhere like this.

He unpacks his few belongings, stows his duffel with spare ammunition, a couple of pistols and a rifle in the bottom of the wardrobe. He takes just one gun with him, tucking it into his waistband, and he leaves the body armour off. Tonight’s not about getting into a fight – he hopes.

Frank takes the B train down to 7th Avenue and walks from there. Hoodie up, it’s easy to blend in with the tourists milling around, heads looking upwards at skyscrapers and billboards. Frank’s looking up too, but he’s looking for different things.

There’s been no sign of his target when he reaches the address he’s memorised. He recces the building first, walking past on the other side of the street and circling the block before slipping into the alley round the back and climbing the fire escape to the roof to settle down to wait.

It’s gone midnight by the time he hears anything, and if he hadn’t been using every technique he’s ever learned to stay awake, he wouldn’t even have noticed the sound of feet gently hitting the flat roof. As it is, he’s on his own feet a second later, ready to draw the pistol if needed.

The crazy-as-shit red suit is gone, and so are the horns, but there’s no mistaking the lean, muscled figure of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

“Red.”

“Castle. Heard you’ve been busy.”

“Yeah.”

“You going to pull that gun on me?” the Devil asks, his voice pitched low.

Frank lets his hand drop. “No. Not here for a fight.”

The Devil still looks ready for one. Frank raises his hands, and then remembers why he’s come, and says, “just want to talk, Red.”

“So talk.”

“Was hoping you’d take the mask off,” Frank says. The Devil frowns at him, and Frank goes for broke. “C’mon, Murdock, your secret’s safe.”

There is a pause, and then the Devil reaches up behind his head and pulls the black mask covering his hair and eyes off. He looks tired, and resigned, and oddly fragile without it.

“Beer?” he says.

Frank follows the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen through a fire escape door and down into a spacious apartment that is almost as bare as his room in the Bronx.

“Light switch in the corridor,” the Devil says, ditching his mask and swiftly unwrapping the ropes he’s wearing around his hands and wrists, before going to the fridge and producing two bottles of German beer. He passes one to Frank and sits, heavily, on the couch.

“I wondered, that night, if you’d worked it out,” he says, tipping his head back and drinking a good gulp of the beer.

“Ninja battle?” Frank asks, remembering the night he’d followed the police scanners to word of a pitched fight between Daredevil, an unknown woman and a lot of assailants with swords on a rooftop. “I was pretty sure it was you. Kind of dark though. Had my suspicions during the trial. That speech, about heroes, sounded familiar.”

Matt Murdock – lawyer, vigilante, Catholic moral do-gooder – shrugs. “I was trying to keep you out of prison, but you blew that one.”

Frank tries the beer. It’s not his thing, but he drinks it anyway.

“I’ve got some Scotch, if you don’t like that,” Murdock says.

“Beer’s fine.” Frank takes a seat in the armchair opposite the couch and studies Murdock properly. He’s not had a chance before. Either they’ve been beating the shit out of each other, or Murdock’s been all smooth lawyer in a suit. Now, the mask is off both faces and it’s not the face Frank had quite expected. He looks younger, and there are deep shadows under the eyes normally kept shielded from the world.

“Why are you here, Frank?” Murdock queries, head tilted, blind gaze directed somewhere towards the window. “Why are you still in New York?”

“Tried leaving. Didn’t go so well,” Frank says.

“Anything to do with Karen Page?” Murdock asks, something of the Devil in his voice.

Frank’s fingers clench, involuntarily, and he beats back the rush of jealousy at the thought that Murdock gets to spend normal work time with Karen. They can walk down the street together and not worry about guns or cops. She’s better with him, but the thought hurts.

“She’s safe, as long as I’m breathing,” he growls out, as an answer.

“She’d better be.”

There is silence. Neither of them wants to break it.

Murdock finishes his beer, gets up to get another from the fridge. Frank watches his assured movements.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “How you do the shit you do.”

“Because I’m blind?” asks Murdock.

“Yeah.”

“You know my hearing’s good,” Murdock says. “After the … after the ninja fight, you said you’d see me around. You knew I’d hear you.”

Frank remembers the moment. If he was honest, he hadn’t thought his words would carry that far, across a long-range rifle shot. He says so.

“I did. Right now, I can hear the couple in the downstairs apartment fucking,” Murdock says, with a slightly bitter look across his face. “Across the way, someone’s watching an old episode of _Friends_. Down the block, an old lady is asking the grocer if he has any soy milk. Could go on.” He drinks. “You came here on the subway. Had a grilled cheese sandwich and fries earlier on. Showered yesterday morning.”

“Yeah, you can stop there,” says Frank, because really, that’s kind of verging on stalkery.

Murdock lifts his beer bottle in agreement. “Short answer, I don’t need sight to see.”

“Still,” Frank says, “you’re better than most at getting up when you get knocked down.”

“A Murdock always gets up,” Murdock quotes, a wry smile on his face. “My dad was a boxer. Speak for yourself, Frank. Didn’t you just break out of hospital?”

“Karen broke me out of hospital.” Frank has to concede Murdock has a point. Both of them have a tendency to walk, battered and bruised, away from a fight. “You still not into killing?” he asks, changing the subject.

Murdock’s eyes shift, even though he is not looking at Frank.

“I was ready to kill, earlier this year,” he admits. “You heard of Wilson Fisk?”

Frank vaguely recalls news stories about some rich criminal.

“I was going to end him,” Murdock says. “Had my hands on his throat.”

“What stopped you?”

“I’m still not sure.”

“Still the choirboy,” says Frank, though it’s not like he doesn’t think Murdock doesn’t have it in him. He’s seen the man’s rage – felt it first-hand, after all.

“Not sure it’s better, my way,” Murdock says, softly. “Should have killed Fisk, when he first started threatening the city. Would have saved a lot of trouble.”

Frank stands up. Enough has been said, and the conversation is risking getting more sentimental than he wants.

“Seems to me,” he says, “guys like us, we attract trouble anyways. Whether we look for it or not. You need me, Karen has my number.”

Murdock nods. “She has mine.”

Draining his beer, Frank holds out his hand. It takes a moment, but Murdock stands and takes it.

“See you around, Red,” Frank says.

“I’m pretty sure I’m in black these days,” Murdock responds. “It’s Matt.”

“See you around, Matt.”

Frank heads out the front door, pulling his hood up as he does so and blending back into the busy-ness of the street. It’s been a hell of a few weeks, but somehow the future seems like it might be looking up.


End file.
